With What Manner of Body 
do They Come 



BY 

JOSEPH MERLIN HODSON 

AUTHOR OF "HO IV TO BEGIN TO LIVE FOREVER 



A 



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WITH WHAT MANNER OF BODY 
DO THEY COME? 



TH WHAT MANNER OF BODY 
DO THEY COME 



/ Cor. xv, 33 



BY 



/ 



JOSEPH MERLIN HODSON 

AUTHOR OF "HOW TO BEGIN TO LIVE FOREVER' 



*M&R 201894 



NEW YORK 
ANSON D. R RANDOLPH & CO. 

(INCORPORA TED) , 



Copyright, 1894, 
By Joseph Merlin Hodson 




John Wilson and Son. Cambridge, U.S.A. 



But some one will say, How are the dead raised ? and 
with what manner of body do they come ? 

Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself sowest is not 
quickened, except it die ; and that which thou sowest, thou 
sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare grain, it may 
chance of wheat, or of some other kind ; but God giveth it 
a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of 
its own. 

All flesh is not the same flesh ; but there is one flesh of 
men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, 
and another of fishes. 

There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial ; but 
the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terres- 
trial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another 



glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars : for one 
star differeth from another star in glory. 

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in 
corruption ; it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dis- 
honor ; it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness ; it is 
raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a 
spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a 
spiritual body. 

So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living 
soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 

Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which 
is natural ; then that which is spiritual. The hrst man is of 
the earth, earthy : the second man is of heaven. As is the 
earthy, such are they also that are earthy : and as is the heav- 
enly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have 
borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image 
of the heavenly. — i Corinthians xv. (R.V.). 



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WITH WHAT MANNER OF 
BODY DO THEY COME? 



WHEN you sow grain, that which you have 
seen and handled dies; but the seed-life of the 
grain, which you cannot see, quickens and 
grows; and God gives the life a new body, that 
it may again be grain. The old wheat kernel 
dies, and for a time the form is lost to human 
eyes; while through the green blade and the 
stalk the life goes on to make the little golden, 



IO 



oval, creased form, and it is again wheat to our 
eyes. The pattern was somewhere, and comes 
again into sight because it gathers visible 
matter about it ; but for eyes that can see 
life, it was never lost. All the form is in the 
life. The old grain may be broken, shrunken, 
wrinkled ; but the new grain comes perfectly, 
because injury to the form, or age, does not 
break or shrink or wrinkle the life. 

God also clothes life with many kinds of 
flesh in this world, — flesh of birds, and of 



1 1 



beasts, and of fishes. He has so arranged it 
that life does it for itself, and no microscope 
is powerful enough to discover how it is done. 
The microscope has found bioplasts, the little 
workshops in which the process of making 
bodies and weaving them about life goes on, 
so that it may move from place to place, and 
live in this world as birds and beasts and 
fishes ; but God's plan, by which even this 
lower order of life makes a home for itself, is 
too wonderful for the human mind. 



12 



Then God has made things as widely dif- 
ferent as the sun and the moon and all stars : 
why should we not believe He is able to 
provide those who have lived upon this earth 
with celestial bodies? Our friends, beautiful 
as they are, and much as we have loved their 
human form, die in corruption; but they are 
raised in incorruption : they die in dishonor; 
they are raised in glory : they die in weakness ; 
they are raised in power : they die in a natural 
body; they are raised in a spiritual body. Just 



13 



as certainly as there is a natural body, there is 
a spiritual body. Adam was created, and all 
his race are born living souls; but Christ is a 
life-giving spirit. Adam was earthly, and from 
him all inherit an earthly life ; but Christ is 
heavenly, and all who are like Him are heaven- 
ly. As we have borne the image of the earthy, 
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 
* * * 

We shall " come " with a spiritual body. We 
shall " come" ourselves, our spirit in a spiritual 



body, — the life that is in us, in God's other 
way, having made for itself a body fitted for 
the new conditions of a celestial world. 

* * * 

May we not start at this point to think, and 
to see, and then go on? — " Faith is the sub- 
stance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
things not seen," and the imagination serves 
faith. The imagination, faith, and feeling, — all 
serve our reason. When our friends die, we 
turn aside from them still living to bury the 



i5 



dead, — the body. Sorrow comes, and we fix 
our attention upon the mouldering wheat ker- 
nel, and do not see the quickening life. The 
death of the form numbs the brain, and chills 
the heart. We weep, blinding our eyes with 
tears. The clay was so precious, and the sense 
of loss and separation so keen ! Our friends 
bend their eyes down with us, and speak con- 
fused words of the dead into our confusion. 
Then comes the sweet, sad preparation for 
burial. It must be thought of. The eyes must 



i6 



be closed, the hands tenderly crossed ; there 
must be the decorous habits of interment, 
suitable garments, flowers of funeral fragrance, 
subdued religious services, the gentle bearing 
of the body away, the careful moulding up of 
the soil, and a granite shaft forever holding 
up a silent finger and saying " dead." We 
stay about the part that dies, lingering in 
fond, morbid imagination, until we see it all 
the way back to dust. But death is the 
moment of quickening! Why not follow the 



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life, — the spirit released, — our friends on, on 
living ! 

Exultation is the going 

Of an inland soul to sea, — 
Past the houses, past the headlands, 

Into deep eternity. 

But who can follow a spirit into " deep eter- 
nity"? We may do so if we think of our friends 
just as we knew them, for they were always 
spirits. It was the spirit we loved. The change 
is from a natural body to a spiritual body, We 



i8 



often saw a change of clothing, while they were 
with us; but it made only the difference in 
them, that when it was very comfortable or 
beautiful, they were gladdened and brightened 
by it. The change of clothing was often a 
great change in appearance, almost like a new 
body; and sometimes the joy of the occasion 
on which it was worn transfigured the face into 
unusual brightness. This did not change them 
from the persons we loved ; it simply made 
them more beautiful. We shall think of our 



*9 



friends living and real, gone only into a realm 
where life is easier and happier, distant from 
us somewhat in minutes or years, perhaps not 
at all in miles ; but whether far or near, now 
and forever the same persons who were with 
us in this life, and whom we loved. 

It is not necessary that we should even give 
up the form in which we knew our friends. 
The form was not all in the clay, which had 
been moulded by the living spirit, for that at 
death became only "the remains," and we laid 



20 



it tenderly away ; and we will now still love and 
see all that we ever knew of them, but clad 
incorruptibly, glorified, and come into all the 
powers of a spiritual body. May it not be the 
spirit, the immortal spirit which we all possess, 
that is now the inner artist, rounding out the 
human form, giving it not only expression and 
character, but its very shape. 

All messengers from the other world that 
have been visible in this world have looked like 
human beings. Our Lord, born into human 



2 I 



life, never ceasing to be God, grew to be like us 
in form. All revelation of God, who is a Spirit, 
represents Him in the form of which we are 
" the very image." May not many forms familiar 
to us on this earth be but the local expression 
of forms that are spiritual? And of all created 
things, we have not yet seen anything so beau- 
tiful as the human form. Why should it not be 
eternal. When it expresses the God-like spirit, it 
becomes, even in physical deformity or worn by 
disease, more and more beautiful. May it not 



22 



be that, when the body is spiritual, there is a 
face to glow with goodness, eyes to change and 
soften and brighten with the love that is deeper 
and more intense than it can be here? We 
certainly cannot think of our friends to our com- 
fort except we retain the continuity of their 
being ; and what necessity of truth would compel 
us to etherealize them into unthinkable and form- 
less beings ? Perhaps, in our theological fear 
lest we should think those of the spirit realm 
too much like ourselves, we have made them too 



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white and dim and shadowy, — far-away ghostly 
beings, scarcely more than a breath, and so to 
us nothing. In their honest effort to turn the 
human mind from what they conceived to be a 
wrong direction, theologians long ago invented 
a terrible word, anthropomorphism, which per- 
haps was useful in the days when idolatry 
was possible ; but its ugly sound has been so 
frightful in its warning that it has wrought a 
nightmare of vague fancies, preventing the 
natural interpretation and inferences of the little 



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revelation which has been given to cheer our 
race, ever made sad by the separation which 
must result, as generation after generation 
passes on. 

Some light has come, and it has come from 
the other side — from God. The great Lick 
telescope has been mounted high up on the 
rugged top of Mount Hamilton, on the western 
coast of the American Continent. On the way 
to it, one gradually leaves behind him the city, 



2 5 



farm homes, fields, vegetation, and comes at 
last to the cold, silent isolation of night on 
the mountain. Then at the hour for observa- 
tion, the huge telescope is made to sweep the 
heavens; and Mars, a small glistening point, is 
fixed in the lens. But with this powerful instru- 
ment it is now more than a point of light, it is a 
world. Perhaps there is an atmosphere. Are 
those regular lines not canals ? May there not 
be intelligent beings there? Oh. if they could 
but signal to us ; if there could but come some 



26 



message from the other side ! The eye at last 
grows wear\ r with the eager pressure of the soul 
to see and know ; but the whole study is from 
our side, — from a little human point on our far- 
away earth. Xo sign, no message, has ever 
come from the planet Mars. 

Human nature looks still more eagerly into 
the future. It studies itself. It studies Nature 
to know its Creator; but a message has come 
from Him, lovingly and tenderly, clearly spoken, 
often repeated, spoken to our faith from the 



27 



other side, verified again and again in our hope 
and peace. 

" God, having of old time spoken unto the 
fathers in the prophets in divers portions and in 
divers manners, hath at the end of these days 
spoken unto us in his Son." 1 

" Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe 
in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house 
are many mansions ; if it were not so I woidd 
have told you ; for I go to prepare a place 

1 Heb. i. 1-2. 



2S 



for you. And if I go and prepare a place 
for you, I will come again, and will receive you 
unto myself ; that where I am, there ye may be 
also." 1 

" And I ^a\v a new heaven and a new earth: 
for the first heaven and the first earth are 
passed away; and the sea is no more. And I 
saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down 
out of heaven from God, made ready as a 
bride adorned for her husband. And I heard 

1 John xiv. 1-3. 



2 9 



a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold 
the tabernacle of God is with men, and he 
shall dwell with them, and they shall be his 
peoples, and God himself shall be with them, 
and be their God: and he shall wipe away 
every tear from their eyes ; and death shall 
be' no more; neither shall there be mourning, 
nor crying, nor pain, any more : the first things 
are passed away, and he that sitteth on the 
throne said, Behold I make all things new." 1 

1 Rev. xx. (R. V.). 



3° 



Some few years ago, in the city of New York, 
a gentleman of ample means lived the usual com- 
fortable life enjoyed in the handsome residences 
of that great city of luxurious homes. One little 
daughter had been given him, the recreation and 
joy of his life. The end of the business day 
brightened, because he would soon go home to 
her. On the way, he saw her more and more 
clearly, as the distance lessened separating them. 
He read the evening paper vacantly on the 
slowly moving car, a smile coming into his face 



3i 



sometimes, caused not by anything he read, but 
in response to the face which in imagination 
he already saw shining with smiles expecting 
him home. His arms tingled with the joy of 
clasping her to his heart, and her kisses were 
real to him, blocks away from the lips he was 
to kiss. 

Then came death, and never afterward could 
his imagination make her real to him, till in 
a dream he seemed to see her, — changed only 
in that she was brighter, more beautiful, more 



32 



eager to speak to him. He received from the 
dream that which was ever after a message 
from her ; and in its fulfilment, his life once 
more became natural and joyous. He realized 
that she was denied to him in sight and words 
and touch, and was given to him in a name- 
less, incomprehensible way, that brought her 
to him, exalting him to an elevation of being 
never before suggested to him. She seemed to 
win him to bless other homes, and he awoke 
from the paralysis of sorrow to a new life of 



00 



usefulness, in which the old joy of his own 
home was restored, in sharing the pleasure of 
fathers and mothers receiving back their lost, 
living daughters. He never again felt himself 
far away from his own daughter, who, in a life 
continued just outside sight and words and 
touch, seemed to move with him in every 
good deed. 

On through the years since then, he has 
been busy, and never before so practical, 
never so happy. A new tenderness came into 



c ,c 



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his heart, a new meaning into his prayers. 
All the activities of every day were con- 
ducted in the gentle sense of a higher part- 
nership, which was very real to him, and 
inexpressibly sweet. His large business has 
grown larger. The life of his bereaved home 
is warmer, richer, deeper; this beautiful world 
is more beautiful, and the sunshine brighter. 
His increased wealth he turns into wider 
blessing to others. He works on, loving 
others under the ministration of his heaven- 



35 



taught daughter. He sees her, clad spiritually 
in the realm of spirits, at liberty from the 
hindrances of human life, how near to him 
who can tell ; how fully associated with him 
in the work that has given her to him again, 
who can tell? He still "sees through a glass 
darkly," but sees more clearly, and is steadily 
held close to a purpose which might bring 
any bright spirit eagerly to earth, as Jesus 
came, to save us all. 



Life is continuous. It begins; it never ends. 
On death the clay is laid aside; a new body 
is given, a spiritual body. A spiritual body has 
no nerves to become exhausted ; it does not 
waste tissue. It never carries insufficient or 
impure blood to a brain. We now sometimes 
have faith, hope, love ; how should we have 
them if we were never eclipsed, or wearied, 
or turned aside? How blessed the stimulus 
wrought within us when our heart must follow 
its love into the spirit life hungering; then 



37 



satisfied by the sweet association of that wiser 
and holier realm ! Death is God's artist, 
fashioning in us higher ideals through our 
absent loved ones; it is God's poet, singing 
new songs in human nature, tuned so tenderly 
and so strongly in the pure melody of the 
life where our friends have gone. 



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